Definition
ANTIQUI is a Latin term meaning "the ancients" or "of the ancient [law]." In legal usage, it appears most prominently as part of the phrase DE DIVERSIS REGULIS JURIS ANTIQUI — "of divers rules of the ancient law" — which is the title of the final and most celebrated title (Title 17) of Book 50 of the Digest of Justinian (Digesta, 50.17). That title collects 211 legal rules and maxims drawn from classical Roman jurisprudence, making it one of the most frequently cited sources in civil law scholarship and one of the foundational reference points for the maxims tradition in both civil and common law systems.
The term itself is not a standalone legal concept but functions as a descriptor of provenance — marking rules as belonging to the body of classical Roman legal thought, as distinguished from later imperial rescripts or medieval glosses.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering ANTIQUI in historical legal texts are almost always encountering a reference to Digest 50.17, either by full title or by shorthand. The 211 maxims collected there were extracted from the writings of classical jurists — Ulpian, Papinian, Paulus, and others — and were treated by medieval and early modern civilian scholars as authoritative distillations of legal principle. Many of these maxims passed into common law usage through Bracton and later through Coke, sometimes in forms that obscured their Roman origin.
Key research traps: First, citations to "Dig. 50, 17" or "D. 50.17" in older treatises and opinions refer to this title, not to the broader Book 50 (which covers general procedural and administrative topics). Second, many maxims cited in common law sources — including English equity courts — are drawn from Digest 50.17 without attribution, having become so embedded in legal culture that their civilian provenance was treated as unremarkable. A researcher tracing the origin of a maxim in an early American or English source may need to work backward through the civilian tradition to find the original.
Third, the word antiqui in other contexts can simply mean "the older authorities" generically — referring to pre-Justinianic jurists or, in medieval usage, to pre-glossator scholarship. Context is essential: when antiqui appears with regulis juris, the Digest reference is almost certain; when it appears alone or in a comparative phrase (antiqui vs. moderni), it may be pointing to an earlier school or period within a given tradition.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement on this entry, both describing ANTIQUI solely through the lens of Digest 50.17 and both noting the 211 maxims contained there. Neither dictionary treats antiqui as a term with independent legal significance apart from this reference. Both entries are essentially identical in substance, which reflects the derivative nature of much early American legal lexicography — Burrill heavily informed Black, and both were drawing on the same continental and English civilian sources.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the broader use of antiqui as a general descriptor in civilian and medieval legal writing, nor the significance of Digest 50.17 as a channel through which Roman maxims entered the common law. For researchers working with the maxims tradition, those gaps matter.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Roman Law and the Civil Law Tradition; Legal Maxims